Clinical radiotherapy has made significant advances since its inception, growing into a tertiary specialty with significant contributions to curative and palliative treatments of cancer and health care cost1. A major limitation to its appropriate application, however, has been the lack of measurable biological indicators, or biomarkers, that can reliably identify patients with cancers that are more or less likely to respond to these treatments2, 3.
Advances in genomic technology have enabled a cataloguing of cancer genes that has resulted in the identification of genetic alterations that contribute to oncogenesis and/or tumor progression and in some cases has led to significant therapeutic advances4, 5, 6, 7. In contrast, X-rays and DNA-damaging drugs are delivered based on the site of anatomical origin of disease and do not currently take into account the genetic complexity that may regulate therapeutic response.